While nothing lasts, is a collection of intimate and sometimes intrusive photographs of my very close friends and family. This project started four years ago at a party, when I made a picture of my friend crying after she told me she wanted to break up with her boyfriend. After that night, I felt compelled to document every moment of my friends’ and family’s lives—the good and the bad. I wanted to do this to better understand how we collectively cope with life, love, heartbreak and death. Since this project began, I have seen friendships come and go, been witness to pursuits of love, moments of intimacy, joy, and self-reflection, seen rejected inhibitions, consequences of actions, loved ones facing their own mortality while lying in hospital beds. These moments have been lessons in how nothing really lasts, helping me to embrace life as it is. Throughout these experiences, I have found life to have a tendency to be beautiful. - Edward Paul Cushenberry